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Absolutely. What it helps people do is to make sense of things. Many times, even in affluent communities, students are motivated only be- cause their parents want them to achieve. But learning does not make sense to them. It doesn't seem relevant. They're doing it only be- cause they have all the right environmental factors. What could be unleashed from those children if we could present information to them in such a way that they could derive their own answers instead of providing answers that were simply memorized? It's all about un- leashing people's potential. I have felt many times as a teacher that disruptive behavior comes from the high achievers as well as the low achievers-because the high achievers are bored! In TOC we have a way to differentiate instruction with one learning process. To bring them all with you.
DW: What is your goal for TOC For Education?
KS: I see empowered learners, enabled learners, and the real joy of lifelong discovery. All those platitudes that we aspire to, I see them being practically achieved. As well as people being kinder to each other. I see this as the real language of civility. Once I had to give a presentation about TOC to a group of teachers. We put on a play with some of my students. And afterwards the students were saying, 'Mrs. Suerken, what's going to happen? This is so effective, there won't be any problems left.' I thought, that will probably never hap- pen! But that's the way they saw it. I wish you could come to our conference in Serbia in May! We're going into Thailand this month through an organization called the Girl's Brigade, like the Girl Scouts. We have somebody in Singapore that's taking it into the sports coun- cil, into sports applications. We're in Malaysia. My new director in the United States, he's going to start a private school next fall and he's writing all of the curriculum based on TOC. Really, I think we've just touched the tip of the iceberg.
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